Artificial intelligence startup Gravyty raises $2 million to accelerate lead in AI-enabled fundraising technology

Investments in artificial intelligence (AI) startups continue to rise. As of this year, there are now about 4,635 artificial intelligence startups, according to publicly available data. Artificial intelligence boom is here and it will continue to affect what we do and we do them. AI is slowly crawling its way into all facets of our lives. Boston, Mass.-based Gravyty Technologies is the industry’s leading provider of AI-enabled fundraising software. The startup leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the most time-consuming processes for frontline fundraisers. Their products empower fundraisers to build lasting donor relationships and raise more revenue for their missions in ways never before possible. Gravyty is the future of nonprofit fundraising through artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Today, the company announced that it has successfully completed its second round of funding, raising $2 million with the leadership of Boston’s NXT Ventures and Launchpad Venture Group. The round also includes the support of John Huysmans, Stage 1 Ventures, and The Venture Capital Fund of New England. This latest round follows a breakout year in which the two-year-old company significantly grew its revenue, tripled the size of its team, and released its initial suite of AI products, including First Draft, the company’s revolutionary self-writing email product.

Led by former fundraiser Adam Martel and AI technologist Rich Palmer, Gravyty was founded at Babson College in 2016. Their motto is: “You shouldn’t have to learn your software; your software should learn you!” Gravyty is a first cloud-based, predictive analytics platform that combines private data with big public data and behavioral insights to help nonprofits raise more money. Gravyty democratizes the fundraising process by predicting who is going to make the next major gift and when best to contact them – without having to migrate data. This solves a major problem for over 600,000 nonprofits – increasing efficiency by reducing onboarding time and amplifying their mission without hiring more people.

“Our customers are always at the center of all that we do. These added resources are an important milestone on our mission to revolutionize the way nonprofit fundraisers use technology to build and manage relationships with their most important donors,” said Adam Martel, Gravyty’s Co-founder and CEO. “These funds will allow us to accelerate the development of our suite of AI products, improve our core technology, and further ensure that our customers are successful in achieving their amazing missions.”

Gravyty offers a radical new approach to fundraising for nonprofit organizations by shifting the organization’s focus from simply aggregating and storing data to enabling action on data to generate revenue. First Draft, the company’s flagship product, delivers to fundraisers draft emails for their most important major and mid-level prospective donors throughout the year. Written using artificial intelligence, these emails can then be be edited and personalized instantly. By utilizing advanced machine learning techniques, First Draft has the unique ability to learn from the user’s edits and refine its understanding of the fundraiser’s writing style and relationships with individual donors. Gravyty also makes it easy to automatically update the CRM systems-of-record as fundraisers work. This breakthrough technology ultimately allows fundraisers the ability to manage relationships with a larger pool of donors and spend more time inspiring donors to make transformational gifts to support their missions.

Co-founder and CTO Rich Palmer remarked, “Artificial intelligence—namely machine learning, deep learning, and computational linguistics—is already having a profound impact on the way organizations build relationships to support their missions. With the help of these cutting-edge, cost-effective technologies, AI-enabled products such as First Draft allow for personalization at scale, without fundraisers needing to do more work. It’s like having ten copies of yourself working toward the same goal.”

“Gravyty is at the forefront of the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning for nonprofit organizations,” said Raymond Nobu Chang, Managing Director of NXT Ventures. “We are so proud to be the first early-backer of this amazing team and we believe their passionate pursuit of customer success through innovation and delivery of disruptive technology will revolutionize the entire nonprofit fundraising industry, and likely more.”

Gravyty’s top investment priorities for this new round of funding include expansion of the company’s customer success and marketing teams, additional sales resources, and accelerated development and delivery of Gravyty’s suite of AI products.

“We’ve been impressed with the Gravyty team since we first started working with them in 2016, and it has been fantastic to see the strong customer response to the First Draft product,” said Christopher Mirabile, Managing Director of Launchpad Venture Group. “Having seeded the company, it was a natural fit and a distinct pleasure to work with them to co-lead this round with Raymond Chang and NXT Ventures.”